


You Make My Heart Feel Like It's Summer

by everywinter



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everywinter/pseuds/everywinter
Summary: Dowoon falls in love with two stray cats that make him feel less alone in a new city. He doesn't know it, but the cats fall in love with him too.





	You Make My Heart Feel Like It's Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [Kodaline - The One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLPGtQoRUbk).

Moving to the city by himself may have been a mistake. His basement apartment is nice, he likes his job enough, and Dowoon’s studying what he loves, but when he gets home at the end of the day he’s all alone and it’s eating him up inside. He’s 21 years old, and this is his first time away from home. Dowoon misses his parents, his sister, and he misses his pets. He finds it hard to connect with the other freshmen, being a good three-four years older than most of them, and he’s really only managed to make friends with his coworkers. Which is fine, but even though Jinyoung’s really nice, he’s sort of intimidating and Dowoon’s still not sure how to react to his teasing, and Jamie, even though she’s three years younger, and almost a foot shorter, scares the crap out of him sometimes. So, he’s left with Brian and Sungjin, who he adores, but they’re a couple and there’s only so much third-wheeling he can handle.

 

He’s opening his door one Friday after the closing shift at work when he gets a text message from Brian saying he and Sungjin won’t be able to hang out after all. All the change hits him at once and the idea of another night by himself in his empty apartment feels unbearable. It completely breaks him and Dowoon ends up sitting on the floor, curled in on himself, crying and he just can’t stop.

 

Dowoon’s weighting the pros and cons of dropping out of school and becoming a hermit in his hometown when something soft and warm brushes against his bare leg. There’s a little black cat with long fur pretty much sitting on his feet, big brown eyes staring up at him. It lets out a dainty meow, and Dowoon reaches down to pet it gently. There’s still tears on his face and his nose is running, but the cat crawls into Dowoon’s lap and kneads his thighs with its little paws anyway.

 

Another meow draws Dowoon’s attention and a ginger tabby makes its way over to him. He runs his free hand over the tabby’s short hair and it shoves the black haired cat closer to Dowoon’s stomach in an attempt to squish into his lap too. The black cat grabs the tabby’s tail between its teeth, Dowoon braces himself to break up a fight, but to his surprise, the tabby calmly stands and lays down directly on top of the black cat, completely smothering it. The ginger cat looks so smug and the black cat’s completely disappeared, except for its long tail hanging forlornly out from under the ginger cat, that a bright burst of laughter escapes from Dowoon. He pulls the ginger cat close to his chest, rubs the black cat’s little ears, and feels happier than he has all month.

 

The cats stick around and by the end of the week, Dowoon finds himself looking forward to going home after his day to see them. They’re not his cats, they’re well fed and groomed so he’s pretty sure someone’s been taking care of them, but they’re waiting for him after he gets home every day. On day six, Dowoon caves and lets them into his house, gives them some water and bites of his leftover chicken, and lets them sleep in his bed that night. He lets them out again in the morning, but they’re back again that night, so Dowoon gives up and lets them stay when he leaves for class the next day.

 

Dowoon figures out they’re both boys and starts calling them Black Bean and Sunshine. Sunshine’s fussier than Bean when it comes to his food. He won’t eat the canned stuff (which is the weirdest thing Dowoon’s ever seen) and turns up his nose at the fancy yoghurt treats Dowoon buys for them on a whim. He’s weird about the radio too. He’ll yowl and cry if Dowoon doesn’t turn it on for them before he leaves for class in the morning. Bean’s less fussy about his food, more fussy about literally everything else. He grooms himself meticulously, and hisses in displeasure when Dowoon brushes his fur in the opposite direction. He cries if Dowoon doesn’t bend down and pet him the instant he gets home and insists on sleeping curled up into a ball against Dowoon’s chest. They have very distinct and strong personalities, even for cats, and Dowoon’s constantly surprised by how human they seem at times.

 

He bonds with them incredibly quickly, even considers sneaking them to class with him in his backpack, and they really become his best friends. Dowoon pours his heart out to his new, furry roommates.

 

“Honestly, I’ve made some friends, good friends even, but somehow it still feels really lonely.”

 

Bean shoves his face against Dowoon’s and he rubs his ears to placate him.

 

“Yeah, I have you guys, but you’re cats. I can’t exactly take you out for a night out. Sometimes, I just miss going out and having dinner with people. I have Sungjin and Brian, but I feel bad third-wheeling them all the time. They never make me feel guilty, but I know they want their own time too.”

 

Sunshine blinks up at him slowly.

 

“I know, I have to give it time, but it’s already been two months. It just doesn’t really feel like home.”

 

Sunshine sneezes and Dowoon sighs and strokes his tail.

 

“Do you guys think aliens are real?” Sunshine stretches out and flops directly over Dowoon’s feet. “I’m just saying, the universe is so big, I don’t think it’s very logical to assume we’re the only ones here. I’m going to choose to believe in nice aliens though, like Vulcan type aliens, for the sake of my own sanity. The idea of alien invasion terrifies me.”

 

Bean purrs harder and snuggles up closer to him. “You guys are ferocious hunters; you’ll protect me, right?”

 

Sunshine looks up at Dowoon and meows.

 

Dowoon grins. “Thanks, buddy. I knew I could count on you.”

 

Two months in, a month after he finds the cats, it finally starts to feel like he'll like it here.

 

Then he wakes up on a Tuesday morning with two naked men in his bed. Dowoon screams and scrambles away from the one curled up against him until his back hits the wall. The blond at the foot of the bed startles and falls right off the bed with a loud thump, while the one with the black hair just groans curls in on himself when Dowoon pulls the blankets around himself for protection.

 

“Dowoonie, no yelling…”

 

“Sweet Jesus, how do you know my name?” Dowoon scrambles for his cellphone, ready to call the police. Apparently, he hadn’t remembered to plug it in last night, because it’s dead. “How did you get in here? Why are you naked? What’s going on? Where are my cats?”

 

The blond’s head pops from the end of the bed. “Oh, shit. Pillie, we’re human again.”

 

“Oh, nice.” The black haired one (Pillie??) sits up and stretches languidly, completely unbothered by his nudity, before turning his attention to Dowoon. “Sorry about that, we had a little bit of a spellcasting incident, and there was no way for us to tell you were weren’t actually cats.”

 

“Oh my god,” Dowoon’s voice comes out high pitched and strained. “you’ve seen me naked.”

 

“I tried not to look!” The blond doesn’t seem all that bothered by the fact that he’s naked either. “If it makes you feel better, everything looks different as a cat. Seeing this place with human eyes is sort of strange.”

 

Dowoon’s still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that 1) his cats are humans now (were never actually cats in the first place??) and 2) apparently, magic is real. He always locks the door before he sleeps, and there’s no way that they could have snuck in here without him waking up. His heart clenches when he realizes Black Bean and Sunshine really are gone forever and it’s really just his shock that keeps the tears at bay.

 

“Sorry, we should probably introduce ourselves.” The one still on the bed sticks out a small hand and Dowoon instinctively takes it in his own to shake. “I’m Wonpil and that’s Jae. In case it wasn’t obvious, we’re magic.”

 

“Wizards?” He asks tentatively.

 

“Witches,” Jae says. Dowoon watches him stand up and he's all leg, just like Sunshine was. “the term’s gender-neutral.”

 

“Oh,” Dowoon says weakly, “so is the cat thing normal?”

 

The bed dips under Jae’s weight as he moves his hand in a ‘sort of’ action. “Like we said; it was an accident. We were dicking around with something outside of our area of expertise and got stuck.”

 

“Thanks for taking such good care of us, by the way.” Wonpil beams at Dowoon, he looks a little like he wants to climb all over him the way Bean used to. “You really saved us.”

 

Jae nods. “There’s no way we would have been able to survive the past month on our own.”

 

“No problem.” Dowoon looks around the room. “It’s a good thing I never got around to buying that cat tree.”

 

Wonpil winces. “We’ll pay you back for all of that stuff.”

 

“Don’t worry about it-”

 

“Seriously,” Wonpil puts his hand on Dowoon’s knee. “we know how hard you already have to work.”

 

“It’s just dollar store cat toys, litter, and cheap kibble.” Dowoon insists. Wonpil’s hand feels like a brand, it’s the most intimate contact he’s had with another human in months. “You’ve more than paid for it with your company.”

 

“That sounds dirty somehow.” Jae says, standing up and pulling Wonpil to his feet too. “Thanks again for taking care of us, but we’ve gotta get going now. I’m pretty sure most of our plants are just clinging onto life.”

 

“Uh, how are you going to get home?”

 

Jae throws an arm over Wonpil’s shoulder and gestures to his left with the other one. “We live in the house next door. That’s how we ended up running into you that first night.”

 

“You’re still naked though.” Dowoon points out, carefully keeping his eyes above the waist.

 

“Oh, right.” Wonpil blinks down at himself before turning his attention back to Dowoon. “Would you mind lending us something to wear?”

 

His clothes are too big on Wonpil and too small on Jae. They look adorably mismatched and Dowoon feels a little like a third wheel. Again. There’s an intimacy between Jae and Wonpil that make them move like one person, Jae fixing the crooked collar of Wonpil’s t-shirt, while Wonpil combs through Jae’s messy hair with his fingers.

 

The two of them leave Dowoon’s apartment hand in hand, both of them shooting Dowoon thankful smiles and friendly grins as they walk back towards their own home.

 

Dowoon goes to work early. The apartment feels too big.

 

He feels like he’s just going through the motions the whole day. Dowoon takes his notes, asks questions in class, and actually gets a pretty good study session in at the library, but he can’t stop thinking about the empty apartment waiting for him. He tries his best not to tear up when he takes all the cat things he’d accumulated over the month to the shelter. There’s no interruptions when he makes his dinner that night. No meowing, no little paws batting at his pants for scraps, and no furry faces sticking their noses into his food. He sleeps with an extra blanket that night.

 

The next day isn’t much better. Sungjin and Brian are almost nauseatingly sweet the entire shift (something about it being their two year anniversary that weekend), Dowoon burns himself pulling cookies out of the oven, and he almost cries when he opens his phone to show Brian something and realizes that his camera roll’s still full of pictures of Sunshine and Bean.

 

Dowoon’s exhausted by the time he gets home, which is why he’s so startled to see Jae and Wonpil sitting, waiting for him, on the stairs leading down to his front door. They’re dressed in matching black hoodies, both of them wearing glasses, and it feels like a shot of adrenaline directly into his body.

 

“Hi!” Wonpil bounces over to him. “We’ve got your clothes all washed for you. Thanks again for taking such good care of us.”

 

“Will you make us omurice?” Jae asks, “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw you make it last week. I can understand why you didn’t let us have any, since we were cats, but I literally dreamed about it for days afterword.”

 

“Can you teach me how to make it?” Dowoon finally notices the carton of eggs in Wonpil’s hands. “I can never get it to work right. I brought eggs, and Jae has rice.”

 

Jae holds up the Tupperware container. “We pre-cooked it so we wouldn’t have to wait to get on the fried rice.”

 

Dowoon nods, feeling a little bit overwhelmed, but happy all the same. “Yeah, come in.”

 

Jae and Wonpil wander around the space, much in the same way that they had as cats, and Dowoon busies himself with setting everything up for the omurice. And frantically reviews all the horribly personal things that he’d told Sunshine and Bean over the course of the month. It’s different, but still very much the same. Jae still tries to steal bites of the ingredients, and Wonpil clings onto Dowoon and watches him cook like it's the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

 

“I’ve gotta do one at a time, since I only have one mould for the rice.” Dowoon explains, rolling up his sleeves. “You guys don’t have to wait for me to eat though, it’s best to eat it while it’s still hot.”

 

“Wait,” Jae’s hand shoots out, pointing to the red patch on Dowoon’s wrist. “what happened? Is that new?”

 

“Oh, yeah.” Dowoon goes to pull his sleeve back down. “I burnt myself at work today, sorry, I know it’s pretty gross.”

 

Jae shakes his head. “It’s fine. Can I?” He put his hand into Jae’s and tries not to wince when long fingers brush the tender burn. “Sorry, I just wanted to see how bad it was. Have you put anything on this yet?”

 

Dowoon shakes his head. “I didn’t have time at work and I’d forgotten about it by the time I got home.”

 

“Do you want me to fix it?”

 

“I think I have some aloe in the bathroom or something…”

 

Jae rolls his eyes. “Not like that. I mean, do you want me to magic it better?”

 

His eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of his head. “You can do that?”

 

“Yeah, I can do that.” Jae laughs, “It’s a burn, not a missing limb.”

 

“You should let him.” Wonpil adds, peering over Jae’s shoulder. “That looks like it hurts and Jae can’t brew a potion to save his life, but his spell-work’s always been really good.”

 

Jae feigns an elbow to Wonpil’s stomach. “You can’t give me a compliment without pairing it with an insult, can you?”

 

“It’s not my fault you can’t seem to figure out the difference between stirring in half turns and quarter turns.” Wonpil shoots back. “If you had left my caldron alone like I asked you to, we never would have gotten turned into cats in the first place.”

 

“Uhh, I don’t mind if you want to magic this away.” Dowoon feels the heat rush to his face when they both turned their attention back to him. “Now that I’m thinking about it again, it sort of itches like the devil.”

 

Jae makes a humming noise, like the beginning of a song, and brings Dowoon’s hand to his face. Jae’s lips feel like ice when they brush against his skin, and if Jae hadn’t kept a firm grip, he would have pulled his hand away.

 

“Sorry, I probably should have warned you it stings a little.” Jae runs his thumb over the now smoothed skin. “Does that feel okay? You’re not hurt anywhere else are you?”

 

“Your face is pretty red,” Wonpil adds innocently, “we can fix sunburns too.”

 

“No, no, I’m totally fine!” Jae’s hand feels huge. “It’s just the heat from the stove. I’m pretty sure the pan’s hot enough for the eggs now.”

 

Jae’s hand tickles his forearm as he pulls away. “Alright, Dowoon, impress us once again with your culinary skills.”

 

He resists the urge to touch the newly healed skin as turns his attention back to the stove. Fucking magic. Sure, his cats had turned out to be grown men, but it wasn’t like Dowoon had actually witnessed the transformation. This was completely undeniable proof that magic was real. Jae had kissed him on the wrist like some sort of bold Victorian courtier and fixed the burn with a kiss. Jae had literally kissed it better.

 

“Woah, it’s even more impressive at this angle.” Wonpil’s eyes are wide as he watches him scramble the eggs and flip them into the classic football shape. “Can I try?”

 

“Don’t let him.” Jae interrupts, “He doesn’t have that natural cooking gene. Ask him about the seaweed soup he made for my birthday last year.”

 

Wonpil smacks Jae on the arm. “You told me you liked it!”

 

“It wasn’t bad, but you have to admit it was a little touch and go for couple seconds.” Jae makes eye contact with Dowoon behind Wonpil’s back, shakes his head, and mouths, “So salty.”

 

Dowoon smothers his laugh and passes Jae the ketchup. “You can have the first one.”

 

Jae draws a penis onto his omurice and insists on drawing matching ones for the other two. It’s juvenile and stupid, and Dowoon laughs way harder than he should.

 

After they finish eating, Dowoon lets Wonpil try and make one on his own. No one’s willing to eat it.

 

Dowoon spends his time after dinner jammed onto his couch, listening to the two of them tell increasingly embarrassing stories about each other. All the inside jokes should have made Dowoon feel uncomfortable, but whenever Jae tells a joke at Wonpil’s expense, his eyes eagerly turn to Dowoon to see his reaction. Wonpil teases right back, but sometimes, he’ll grab Dowoon’s arm and plead for backup instead. Whenever Dowoon tells a joke, both their faces light up and there’s an electricity between the three of them that sends tingles up Dowoon’s spine.

 

When Dowoon yawns for the second time that evening, Wonpil grabs Jae by the arm and starts pulling him towards the door. “Thanks for feeding us again, Dowoonie! It really was as good as I thought it would be.”

 

Just like last time, they leave hand in hand. Jae turns to wave goodbye. “See you later!”

 

Dowoon feels something heavy over him lift and waves back. “I’ll see ya.”

 

He starts seeing Jae and Wonpil almost every single day. It should be overwhelming, but sometimes Wonpil texts him asking if he’s was home or not, then pops over with cookies. Or he’ll bump into Jae outside on the way to the bus and they walk to his stop together. Having the two of them over at least twice a week for dinner really helps to banish the emptiness of his apartment. Their presence lingers without being stifling, and by the end of the month, Dowoon pretty much forgets that they were ever his cats.

 

“Fuck!” Jae comes out of Dowoon’s bathroom, rubbing a sore spot on his head. “Why is your bathroom ceiling lower than the rest of the place?”

 

“We’ve been hanging around here for three months, two of them as humans, and you’re still not familiar enough with the interior to avoid braining yourself almost every single time you use the bathroom.” Wonpil waves Jae over to inspect the red spot on his forehead. “You’re fine, you big baby.”

 

“Pillie, fix it for me.” Jae whines, “It hurts.”

 

“It’s good for developing character.” Wonpil says, shoving Jae away and turning back to his phone. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

 

“Dowoon,” He flushes under Jae’s attention. “fix it for me.”

 

He could turn away, pretend he doesn’t understand what Jae’s angling for, but there’s genuine hope under the playfulness in Jae’s expression, so Dowoon leans over and quickly kisses him on the forehead. “Better?”

 

The inferno brewing in Dowoon’s body is a fair price to pay for the look of complete delight that comes over Jae’s face. “So much better.”

 

Wonpil shoves himself between the two of them. “Me too!”

 

“Somehow you’re worse as humans than you ever were as cats.” Dowoon bends a little and gives Wonpil his own kiss. He feels less shy this time and lets his lips linger. “I like you both equally.”

 

“We know.” Jae grins. “You should come over to ours tomorrow though. Less chance for me hurting myself and we can feed you for once.”

 

“You already feed me,” Dowoon points out. “I just provide the manual labour.”

 

“We’ll wine and dine you properly then,” Wonpil says, “you can just come over and eat.”

 

Dowoon narrows his eyes at Wonpil. “Does that mean you’re the one who’s going to be cooking or…?”

 

“Hell no,” Jae laughs, “not without supervision anyway. We’ll probably order something in. Just come hungry.”

 

“Dowoon, you too?” Wonpil wails, “I’m not a bad cook! The seaweed soup incident was a onetime thing! I’d never made soup from scratch before and it turned out okay in the end!”

 

“Right, right, sorry!” Jae pats his back gingerly. “It was great soup, and we’re bad people for continually teasing you about the only culinary mistake you’ve ever made in your entire life.”

 

“Get off me.” Wonpil shoves Jae away and latches onto Dowoon instead, pressing his face against his shoulder. “This is all your fault, you’ve poisoned Dowoon against me.”

 

He bites his lip to keep from laughing. “Sorry, but it isn’t Jae’s fault for once. I drew my own conclusions after the second gyoza incident.”

 

Wonpil turns his tiny fists of rage to him instead, but they tickle rather than hurt, and that’s how the two of them find out about Dowoon’s ultimate weakness. They tickle him until he cries, and the three of them end up in a hysterically laughing pile on the floor, tears streaming down all their faces. He sleeps like a baby that night.

 

Dowoon’s insanely nervous the hour leading up to going over to Jae and Wonpil’s house. They haven’t really used magic around him since the burn healing incident and he’s equal parts thrilled and anxious about the idea of a house full of magic. The door swings open before Dowoon even knocks, and Jae’s standing on the other side, smile bright.

 

“Come in!” Jae drapes his arm across Dowoon’s shoulder and drags him inside, the door closing on its own behind them. A pair of slippers float their way across the hardwood and gently drop in front of his feet. “Wonpil’s finishing something up downstairs, so I’ll give you the tour.”

 

The house is comfortably cluttered, all warm colours, and personal touches. There’s a pile of books on the edge kitchen table, soft coloured blankets on the couch, and photos in frames lining the walls. It looks like a home.

 

“Do you wanna see the basement?” Jae hesitates in front of the basement door. “It’s more… magic-y than the rest of the house. Nothing dangerous, but I know we were you first exposure to magic and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

 

Dowoon nods. “I trust you. I know you guys wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

 

The basement feels like an entire different space. It looks like a typical basement, but there’s plants that Dowoon can’t identify hanging from the ceiling and the walls are lined with floating shelves of books, some bound with sheathes of bright red cloth. Wonpil’s sitting at a wooden table, stained various colours from previous spills, with his hands buried in a red zip-up, eyes glowing a faint, uniform lilac colour.

 

He pulls his hands away from the hoodie with a gasp, eyes blinking back to normal as he looks up at Jae. “I talked to him, but he didn’t really want to be found. Who was the client again?”

 

Jae taps his fingers against the table. “Alpha werewolf. Apparently, the hoodie belongs to one of his pack members who disappeared one day with no explanation.”

 

Wonpil cracks his neck and winces. “Yeah, he didn’t disappear, he left. He told me he needs personal space and gave me a very expletive heavy message to pass along to the client.”

 

Jae blows on his fingers and turned them a soft, glowing gold before gently massaging Wonpil’s shoulders. His head slumps forward with a groan. “Thanks, I feel like my shoulders are going to snap, they’re so tight.”

 

“Literal magic fingers.” Jae says, wiggling his eyebrows at Dowoon. “Dowoon’s here, Pillie.”

 

“What?” His head snaps back up and Wonpil breaks into a giant grin. “Dowoon! You’re here early!”

 

“He’s not, you just took forever to find that guy.”

 

“It’s not my fault, the client didn’t tell us he had a spark!” Wonpil pouts, “He was blocking me!”

 

“Yeah, yeah, and you found him anyway. It’s better than I could have done.” Jae adds.

 

Jae’s got this fond, proud look on his face and Wonpil preens under the attention. They look otherworldly, the shimmer of magic still hovering in the air around them, and Dowoon feels like he’s intruding on something personal.

 

“Dowoon,” Wonpil’s voice shakes him out of his thoughts. He and Jae are looking at him eagerly. “do you want to see something cool?”

 

The ‘something cool’ turns out to be a straight up ritual. Dowoon watches from the beanbag chair they put him in as Jae pushes the table to the side so Wonpil can carefully trace an intricate design onto the concrete floor with what looks like a piece of black chalk.

 

“This one?” Jae asks, holding up a plain leather bracelet from a small box.

 

“No,” Wonpil says, scratching his nose with his clean hand. “too plain, the other one.”

 

“This one?” He holds up a bracelet of small, uniform black beads. “The other option is the one full chain-link one, but that just doesn’t feel right.”

 

Wonpil holds out his hand and Jae puts the bracelet into his clean hand. “Perfect.” He adds a couple more strokes onto the floor before blowing away the excess dust. It floats up instead of in the direction of his breath. The extra chalk goes back into the tiny metal box Wonpil took it out of and he wipes his hands on a cloth. “Ready?”

 

Jae nods. “Ready.”

 

They both turn to Dowoon and he swallows. “Ready.”

 

They sit on opposite ends of the circular chalk drawing, with the bracelet set in the very centre. Jae starts singing first, and his voice is light, but strong and Dowoon feels shivers run down his spine as a layer of the intricate chalk drawing rises into the air, spinning with a golden glow. Wonpil’s voice joins Jae’s, and there’s something indescribably special about the way the two of them sound together, and the second layer rises along with the first. Wonpil’s eyes are glowing that lilac colour again and Dowoon doesn’t even recognize what language they’re singing in, but right just as the panic starts to creep into his chest, Wonpil turns to him and smiles. Even with his eyes pupil-less and glowing, Wonpil’s smile still makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. Then, all of a sudden, it doesn’t feel so scary anymore.

 

The light from the slowly spinning sigils give Jae’s skin a warm glow, and when Wonpil closes his eyes as he sings, the light intensifies. It makes Dowoon think of sunshine against the snow and eventually it gets so bright, he has to look away. The song ends, the light abruptly disappears, and when Dowoon looks again, Jae and Wonpil look much the same way they had the first day he’d woken up with them in his bed.

 

“Come here,” Jae crawls over to the bracelet, the black chalk from before has completely vanished, and hands it to Dowoon. “look.”

 

The bracelet feels warm in his hands, but at first glance, the black, glass beads don’t look very remarkable. The slight disappointment must show in Dowoon’s face, because Jae laughs and urges him to look closer.

 

“Really look,” He says, “hold it in your hands and really feel it.”

 

Dowoon tries again, lifting it up so it reflects the light and almost gasps at the depth in the tiny circles. There’s a gentle, purple sheen to them that he swears wasn’t there before, and it looks like there’s a tiny universe inside each glass bead. When Dowoon spins the beads, the soft noise they make as they slide together makes the little worlds inside spin too, and Dowoon could spend hours staring at it.

 

“What does it do?” He knows he must be gawping like a fool, but he can’t help it. “It’s magic, right?”

 

Wonpil laughs and ruffles Dowoon’s hair. “It’s magic. Our magic, to be more specific. It’s meant to keep the owner safe.”

 

“It’s for you.” Jae says, hesitantly taking it back and slipping it around Dowoon’s wrist. It fits perfectly. “If you want it, I mean. No pressure, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear jewellery, but generally accessories are easier to enchant and I think it suits you pretty well.”

 

Dowoon has to swallow around the lump in his throat. He’s not sure why, but something about this must be special. “I love it. Thank you.”

 

Jae kisses the inside of his wrist the same way he did when he fixed Dowoon’s burn. His lips are warm and he looks up at Dowoon through his dark lashes. He feels himself flush.

 

Dowoon really isn’t used to wearing jewellery and he can’t stop playing with his new bracelet during dinner. It brushes against the bone of his wrist when he puts his wrist against the table and he sees it out of the corner of his eye when he lifts his glass to his lips. He’s most aware of it when he catches Jae or Wonpil staring at it while the other talks. It’s like it warms with their gaze.

 

“Maybe I should go home.” He glances out the window, it’s pitch black outside. Time always seems to fly when he’s with Jae and Wonpil. “I don’t want to keep you guys.”

 

“Aw, stay!” Wonpil says, pulling Dowoon back onto the couch, refusing to move his legs. “It’s so dark outside.”

 

“I live next door.” Dowoon laughs, “It’s not like I’m going to get lost on the way home.”

 

“What if you trip and twist an ankle.” Wonpil protests, “I’d feel awful.”

 

“Jae can fix it.” Dowoon says.

 

“But it’s chilly outside.” Wonpil adds, “I know you didn’t bring a jacket. Just stay with us. Admit it; you’d be lonely without us anyway.”

 

Dowoon feels heat rush to his face and he looks down away from Wonpil’s teasing eyes. He’s always been awful at hiding his feelings and he already knows he’s given way too much away. Usually, he can accept that their friendly flirting is just that, but Dowoon can’t help the stab of longing that overtakes him today. Between the bracelet, all the magic, and how terrifyingly at home he feels with them, it all just feels cruel today.

 

“I mean if you’re sure… Do you have a spare pillow I could use though?” Wonpil’s hand feels like a shackle around his wrist and Dowoon gently pulls his hand away. “I’m pretty sure I could make something work with the blankets, but I don’t really want to wake up with a sore neck.”

 

Wonpil looks hurt. “Wait, you’re sleeping on the couch?”

 

“Where else am I supposed to sleep?” He asks, in disbelief. “You don’t have a bed in your study do you?”

 

Jae groans and rubs his forehead with hand. “I told you this was a stupid idea. Subtly leads to too much room for misinterpretation.”

 

“We popped up naked in his bed after living with him as cats for a month!” Wonpil argues, “I didn’t want to scare him!”

 

Dowoon wants to add that ‘he’ is right there, but Wonpil looks more irate than he’s ever seen him, and he doesn’t really want to get involved in all of the vague yelling.

 

“Yeah, well, now you’ve hurt his feelings and he thinks we don’t want him!”

 

 _Oh._ Dowoon’s never felt so stupid in his entire life. It was pretty obvious in hindsight. _Chalk it up to low self-esteem, I guess._

 

“Yeah, well, is this direct enough?” Wonpil turns to Dowoon, pulls him close, hand warm on the back of his neck, and kisses him thoroughly. His mouth is demanding against Dowoon’s and he finds himself melting into the kiss. Wonpil runs his hands through Dowoon’s hair and he sighs into the kiss, and when they pull away his eyes are half-lidded and Dowoon still can’t quite believe this is happening to him.

 

“Dowoon,” He turns and Jae’s looking at him, eyes warm. “can I?”

 

He nods and Jae leans in to kiss him and it feels just as right. Jae’s lips are as gentle as they were against his wrist; he wraps his arms around him, boxing him in, in a way that makes him feel safe. Wonpil’s still holding his hand and Dowoon’s never felt more wanted, more treasured, in his entire life.

 

“Is this okay?” Wonpil whispers, lips brushing against his neck.

 

Dowoon nods.

 

“Dowoon, we like you a lot.” Jae’s eyes are staring directly into his and he feels like he’s drowning. “Will you stay the night with us?”

 

Dowoon nods again and he loses himself in another kiss. He doesn’t spend the night on the couch.

 

When he wakes up in the morning, he panics. Wonpil’s wrapped around him and Jae has an arm flung over the both of them, chest pressed against his back, and Dooown doesn’t know what to do. They both still seem to be sleeping, and he doesn’t know if the courteous thing is to try and go back to sleep or just get up. If he gets up, should he make everyone breakfast? Would that be too presumptuous of him? This is, technically, the first time he’s been in their house, he probably shouldn’t go rummaging around in their kitchen for things to eat. But he doesn’t think he can fall asleep again, not with all these thoughts running through his head, and, oh god, he really has to pee.

 

“Stop thinking so loud.” Wonpil mumbles into his chest, startling Dowoon so badly he jumps a little. “It’s Saturday, and I know you don’t have work today. Normal people sleep in on Saturdays.”

 

Jae shoves at Wonpil a little, breath hot against Dowoon’s neck when he speaks. “Let go of him, he probably has to pee. That’s literally the first thing he does when he wakes up, without fail.”

 

Wonpil flops over and curls in on himself. “Come back fast, you’re going to let the heat out of the sheets.”

 

Dowoon rushes into the bathroom, relieves himself, and spends another 30 seconds running his hands through his hair in confusion. He’s scared. Jae and Wonpil aren’t the only friends he’s made, but they’re obviously his closest ones. Since he met them, Dowoon's found himself way more willing to open himself up to people. He’s made friends with some of the other freshmen, confronted his fear of his coworkers and become rather close with Jamie and Jinyoung. He doesn’t even mind the slightly uncomfortable third-wheel moments with Brian and Sungjin anymore, because he knows he has people waiting back for him at home.

 

That though sends him back into another spiral. When did he start thinking of Wonpil and Jae as ‘home’?

 

A soft knock sounds on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”

 

It’s Jae.

 

“Yeah, totally fine.” Dowoon’s voice cracks. “Totally fine in here, no need to worry.”

 

A couple seconds of silence follow and Wonpil’s voice follows. “Pull your pants up, we’re coming in.”

 

The doorknob glows lilac for a second and the door swings open to reveal Wonpil and Jae on the other side. Wonpil loosely wraps his arm around Dowoon’s shoulders, reaches a hand up to brush the tears off his face. He hadn’t even realized he was crying.

 

“You’re okay, Dowoonie, we’ve got you.” He sooths, running his hands over Dowoon’s back. “Let’s go sit on the bed. You gonna be okay?”

 

He nods and follows the two of them back out. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

 

“Sorry,” Jae sits on Dowoon’s other side and hesitantly puts his hand on his knee. “I know we can be sort of overwhelming.”

 

“The introduction of kissing and all that magic probably wasn’t a good idea.” Wonpil adds, draping a blanket around Dowoon’s shoulders and loosely taking his hand in his own. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

He picks at the corner of the well-loved blanket. “You guys are so happy together already. You’ve both got established careers in _magic_ of all things, and I’m still in my first year of university. I barely know what I’m doing.”

 

“Uh,” Jae squeezes his knee. “I don’t know where you got the impression we have it together, but we’re just stumbling along too. You saw Wonpil, the guy doesn’t even know how to flip eggs.”

 

Wonpil groans as Dowoon lets out a weak laugh. “Why does it always come back to my cooking skills?”

 

“Seriously though, we like you. A lot.” Dowoon looks up at Jae and his face is more serious than he’s ever seen. More gentle too. “We didn’t just stick around after the spell wore off out of sympathy. You’re fun, you’re nice, you’re were always so gentle with us.”

 

“Even if you don’t want whatever last night was, we still want you in our lives.” Wonpil says, “In whatever capacity you’ll have us.”

 

“I think I’m just scared you’ll change your minds.” Dowoon admits, “You don’t need me, and already feel like I’m way too attached.”

 

Wonpil inches closer to Dowoon. “We’re pretty attached too, in case it wasn’t obvious.”

 

Jae touches the bracelet on his wrist and it shimmers, a now familiar, gold. “We’re not going to change our minds. Even if you don’t want us around anymore, even if you give the bracelet back, it’s never going to work for anyone but you.”

 

Wonpil brushes his fingers over the beads too and they glow. “You’re right, we don’t need you, but we want you.”

 

He looks up, sees Wonpil and Jae looking at him like he’s the most important thing in the world and he probably has a similar look on his face. Maybe it’s a testament as to just how far Dowoon’s gone that he’s not scared by this grand declaration from the two of them, but it’s somehow exactly what he wanted to hear. They’re good to him. They encourage him to branch out, to come out of his shell, but they give him somewhere safe to retreat back to as well. Dowoon pulls them towards him and the three of them spend the rest of the morning wrapped up in one another.

 

Dowoon starts spending half his nights in his own apartment and half his nights with Jae and Wonpil. Nothing really changes, but even eating ramen at 2:00 a.m. in the morning in his underwear feels warmer when Wonpil and Jae are hanging around in the kitchen with him.

 

Sometimes they are too much though. Wonpil always wants to know what he’s doing, if he can help him with his homework, and Jae’s always yelling at something, his computer, the TV, Wonpil… He’s in the middle of studying for his Intro to Astronomy course when Jae screeches as his character dies and Wonpil leans over at the same time to point out something he’s done wrong and Dowoon just snaps. It’s only 10:00 a.m. and there’s still so much that he has to do, and he’s just needs to be _alone_. He piles all his things into his backpack, while Wonpil wanders into the study to bother Jae instead, and rides his bike to the library three neighbourhoods away.

 

The library’s almost a ghost-town and it’s even emptier in the quiet study section. Dowoon sits down, puts his headphones in, and breezes through the rest of his studying for the day. But it feels strange. He looks up to ask a question, but Wonpil’s not there to answer. His mouth feels dry and his hand instinctively reaches to the side for a mug, but Jae isn’t there to constantly refill his tea. It feels wrong, and he’s finished for the day, so Dowoon picks everything up and rides back faster home even faster than he did to the library.

 

He opens the door and follows the sounds of giggling to see Wonpil and Jae soaking in the absurdly sized bathtub in the master bathroom. There’s bubbles up to their chests and Dowoon waves at them from the doorway.

 

“Dowoon, join us.” Jae waves him over, sending a cascade of bubbles flying through the air from his fingertips. “Oops, my bad.”

 

“Where did you end up going to study?” Wonpil asks, “Did you get a lot done?”

 

Dowoon nods, stripping off his clothes and sliding into the warm water with a groan. “It was really productive, but I missed you guys.”

 

Wonpil coos over him and Jae pulls him to sit between the two of them in the water. The water’s just this side of too hot and Jae’s fingers work the deep knots from studying out of Dowoon’s shoulders.

 

He groans and lets his head fall forward. “Magic fingers.”

 

“You should see the other things I can do with my fingers.” Jae wiggles his eyebrows and swirls his hand through the air, the bathwater dancing through the air like it has a life of its own. Jae sends it to wrap around Dowoon’s shoulders and it feels like a warm, heavy blanket. Wonpil leans in and the breath that passes his lips turns the sheathe of water into bubbles that fizz against his skin.

 

“Show off.” Jae says with a frown, flicking water into Wonpil’s face.

 

They end up in a shoving match that ends when Wonpil gains the upper hand and shoves Jae’s head under the water. He comes up spluttering, hair soaking wet, and Jae turns his attention to Dowoon when he bursts into laughter. The battle begins again and the entire bathroom ends up completely soaked, but Wonpil cleans it up with a snap of his fingers. Dowoon loves magic.

 

One morning, Dowoon pretty much turns his apartment upside down looking for his yellow hoodie before realizing that he probably left it at Jae and Wonpil’s place. He knocks on the door and waits, and it swings open and he wanders into the house, calling out in greeting.

 

“We’re in the kitchen!” Wonpil calls back and Dowoon follows his voice.

 

Dowoon leans over the counter to give Jae a kiss and runs over to give Wonpil one as well. “Smells good, what are you cooking?”

 

“Pancakes,” Wonpil gestures to Jae with his thumb. “his highness demanded it.”

 

Jae sticks his nose in the air with a sniff. “I deserve to be spoiled. Do you want some Dowoonie?”

 

“No, I already ate,” He pours himself a cup of coffee and sits down next to Jae. “I’m actually looking for my hoodie. The yellow one? I couldn’t find it anywhere in the apartment, so I must have left it here.”

 

Wonpil drops a stack of pancakes in front of Jae. “Yeah, it’s in the closet, I hung it up for you.”

 

“You know, you should just move in with us, save on rent.” Jae says, drenching his pancakes in syrup. “You practically live here anyway.”

 

“Jae!” Wonpil swats him on the hand with his spatula. “We agreed we’d give him more time!”

 

Dowoon blinks for a couple seconds, listening to the two of them argue, before shrugging and taking a sip of his coffee. “Sure.”

 

The two of them froze. Wonpil comes back to his senses first. “Sure?”

 

“Sure.” Dowoon echoes, “You guys have good timing, my lease is up at the end of the month anyway.”

 

“Oh.” Jae blinks at him before turning back to his pancakes with gusto. “Cool, do you want help packing?”

 

They go back to Dowoon’s apartment that weekend and finish packing up in less than four hours. Sure, the magic really helps, but it turns out half of Dowoon’s stuff is already at the house. Jae whines the entire time they move the boxes from the apartment to the house.

 

“Why don’t we just make them small and bring them over? What good is magic if you don’t use it?”

 

Dowoon rolls his eyes and takes Jae’s box on top of his own. “These are literally the last three boxes; can you just grab me a glass of water or something?"

 

He puts the boxes into the bedroom with the rest of his things and slumps into the bed ( _their_ bed!), gratefully taking the glass of water from Jae. “I know I didn’t have all that much to move over, but I really don’t want to have to bother with unpacking right now.”

 

“That’s what magic’s for.” Jae says, waving his hands over the boxes. Everything opens and flies through the hallways, presumably to settle into their rightful places. “If you’d just let us do everything with magic at your house, everything would have gone faster.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re always right, we’re always wrong.” Wonpil flicks his fingers and the boxes collapse and slide neatly into the recycling. He sits down on the bed next to Dowoon. “Welcome to your new life of 24/7 nagging. There’s still time to change your mind.”

 

“I’ll risk it.” Dowoon says, letting Wonpil kiss his cheek.

 

“Oh!” Wonpil pops up and flaps his hands in excitement. “Jaehyungie, go get the thing!”

 

“I can’t believe I understood what you were talking about.” Jae rolls his eyes, grabs a little box out of his side table, and sits down on Dowoon’s other side. “We’re witches; we don’t exactly have house keys, so we spelled these to unlock the door for you. You can make more if you wanna change them out.”

 

There’s a pair of black, circular disks in the box. The earrings have the same shimmery, glowing quality as his bracelet and he switches out the plain silver studs in his ears.

 

“How do they look?” He’s smiling so hard his cheeks are starting to hurt a little.

 

“Perfect.”

 

Wonpil kisses him in their bed while Jae whispers sweet secrets into his ear, and Dowoon feels warm and loved and knows that he’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> My vaguely Halloween themed fic that ended up being the longest oneshot I've ever written. It sort of got away from me.
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/everywinter1)/[Tumblr](https://everywinter.tumblr.com/)/[CC](https://curiouscat.me/everywinter)


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